9 minute read
LOCAL ELECTIONS
STUDENT REACTIONS TO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
fter a weeklong process of projections following Election Day, most major media have now projected Joe Biden will be elected President of the United States of America. We asked Mustangs on campus to tell us their thoughts on the outcome
CORBYN SCOBEE, ART SOPHOMORE
“It was very terrifying. I had to try to tell myself I didn’t care. It sounds so overdramatic but if Trump was elected again I was literally scared for my life. Like, there are so many parts of my life where I’m a minority of something, that it was like, he’s going to f--- something up if he’s allowed to stay. I cried at work when I was told Biden won. I’m kinda excited to see how the next four years go. I’m more excited to see what he does the first few months about COVID stuff, seeing if we get put in another lockdown, if he’s gonna force us, stuff like that.”
QUEEN DARK, BUSINESS FRESHMAN
JO PARKER, ENGLISH SOPHOMORE
“I feel like the next four years are going to be rough simply because the country is so divided. Trump lead an army and not a nation and he wasn’t president for all of us, just the ones he knew would try and re-elect him. I believe Biden is going to make some changes that will scare people, because progress is always scary, but overall I feel hopeful for the first time in four years. I feel incredibly relieved that my country voted for a man who is promising growth.”
“This election was huge, and everyone could see that. No matter what side they were on, which lead to the biggest voter turnout in history. Both Trump and Biden set records. Overall I feel like the people voted for a man who wants to put this country on the right track, and that gives me a lot of hope.”
JAMILAH KANGUDJA, A GRADUATE STUDENT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND PRESIDENT OF THE BLACK STUDENT UNION
“With the different ism’s and Xenophobia [Trump expressed], I just think it’s interesting that people rallied behind [Trump] and supported him with those different things that he outwardly expressed. I hope that during [Biden’s] term he makes a lot of progress in regards to what the United States of America wants, what the majority of people would want and what would benefit us in the long run. I hope that he really does put us in a better situation. Hopefully he gets a handle on COVID.”
LUIS SERNA-MARTINEZ, POLITICAL SCIENCE JUNIOR AND PRESIDENT OF MSU TEXAS DEMOCRATS
“Right when the news broke, we started messaging in our groupchat and everyone was basically celebrating, and there seemed to be a lot of hopefulness. I believe [Trump] moved our country backwards.... While I know all the problems in this country are not going to be fixed, I feel the Biden will take steps into the right direction and turn us away from the direction that this country is headed. Myself and other Democrats are hopeful that Biden will begin to repair some of the damage that had been done and begin to push for a more progressive agenda, while reaching out and trying to work with Republicans who are willing to compromise and move our country forward.”
AUNJELLE IRLBECK, HISTORY JUNIOR AND CHAIRWOMAN OF YOUNG CONSERVATIVES OF TEXAS AT MSU TEXAS
“We have to remember in the process of electing a president, all of the states have to individually certify who won their state, and that usually takes place in through the rest of November into the beginning of December. Technically speaking, the media may have projected Joe Biden as the president-elect, but since the states have not certified it yet, that is not quite the case. Overall I think there is definitely a net positive [for Trump’s term]: the economy was looking really, really good there, a lot of people were getting off of government assistance and were able to support themselves and Trump was working on price transparency, which is incredibly important. I would hope that on certain issues Biden would take it slower than what he’s wanting to take. Personally for myself, medical freedom is a really big issue. You have Joe Biden talking about mandating masks nationwide and there are talks about mandating vaccines. I’m not a big fan of mandates for anything like that.”
Wichita Falls votes for status Quo
Texas, it appears the Republican Party has maintained its grip on the Lone Star State, despite closer races than in past years.
With 98% of the votes reported and 5,944,613 votes compared to the 4,860,121 votes of challenger MJ Hegar (D), incumbent Senator John Cornyn (R) has been voted into his fourth term as the senior United States Senator for Texas. Wichita County voted 31,488-12,278 in favor of Cornyn with third-party candidate Kerry McKennon (L) winning 988 votes.
Texas’ 13th congressional district, which contains Wichita County, voted in favor of keeping incumbent Dr. Ronny Jackson (R). Gus Trujillo (D), who visited the MSU Texas campus in October, won 50,213 votes compared to Jackson’s 216,523 ballots. Wichita County voted 31,665-11,890 in favor of Jackson. Libertarian candidate Jack Westbrook won 1,177 votes in the county. Statewide, Republicans won the majority of the 35 seats up for election.
While the presidential election has been called by most major media in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden (D), Texas continued its red streaks and voted for incumbent President Donald Trump (R). Trump received 5,872,362 votes compared to the 5,216,327 votes of Biden. In Wichita County, Trump won 31,930 votes and Biden won 13,024.
Texas did not become the swing state many thought it might, but Democrat candidates won two more congressional seats than they previously had. Wichita County continued its history of voting Republican.
With all the votes in Wichita Falls officially counted, it appears the city had largely voted to avoid change.
Incumbent Mayor Stephen Santellana has once again been reelected as mayor of Wichita Falls with 17,649 votes. Kevin Hunter received the second most votes with 9,265 and former “Big Brother” star James Huling received 4,139.
All three of the city council seats up for election were won by the incumbents. Jeff Browning beat out Mel Martinez for the District 3 councilor position, 4,470-2,209. District 4 saw Tim Brewer defeat Jason Hester 4,560-3,410. In the closest battle of the three, Steve Jackson won 1,908 votes to retain the District 5 councilor position, edging out challenger Tim Brewer and his 1,759 votes. Martinez and Hester both visited the MSU Texas campus in October.
The Wichita Falls Independent School District bond scored a half-victory. With 14,538 votes for and 14,216 against, Wichita Falls voted for Proposition A of the bond which approves plans to build two new high schools. However, the city voted 15,01313,632 against Proposition B, which would have built new athletics facilities for these high schools. It now appears that Memorial Stadium might play host to five high schools, as well as
GRAPHIC BY SANDRA CRUZ | THE WICHITAN Collage of Republican candidates that got the majority vote in Texas.
Despite projections, Texas remains red
AMOS PERKINS MANAGING EDITOR
With the Associated Press calling all major elections in
the Mustangs.
9
An expected winner, An unexpected outcome: A 2020 presidentiAl election AnAlysis
JOSEPH NELSON REPORTER
Joe Biden, the president-elect, went into the 2020 election sporting larger leads in swing states than Hillary Clinton in 2016. According to Nate Silver, an election analyst, a Trump victory would require an even larger polling error than the one that elected him four years ago. In fact, he compiled a table of swing state margins and subtracted the polling errors from 2016. Just four days before the election, the electoral map from that table predicted every state’s 2020 outcome, except for Florida. Even with the added polling error, Joe Biden was able to flip many states Trump won in 2016, and those changes largely had to do with high voter turnout, shifting demographics and changing priorities.
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania: Former President Obama won all of these states handily in 2012, yet they all went to Trump in 2016. If Hillary Clinton had the same number of votes Obama did in these states, she would have won all three. Additionally, Trump’s 2016 vote count was less than Mitt Romney’s in Wisconsin, and yet Trump pulled ahead of Clinton due to low enthusiasm for both parties. It’s very probable that the highest voter turnout since 1900 was the deciding factor in Biden winning back the “blue wall”.
Results according to the New York Times 2012 and 2016 results.
Arizona: Arizona has one of the largest senior populations in the country, and they proved decisive for Biden in this election. According to the New York Times exit polls, seniors voted for Trump by only a few points, representing a huge decline from where they were in 2016. Additionally, Arizona is a much more diverse state than it was in the 90s, and the urbanization of Maricopa county over the years has made this a winnable race for the Democrats.
Georgia: Biden is likely to have won the peach state without winning any of the surrounding swing states of Florida or North Carolina. According to Politico, the former 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams registered more than 800,000 new voters in the state, which proved to make Georgia bluer than the surrounding Deep South. Not only that, according to an AP election day survey, Georgia was the only state from Dixie to label racial injustice a “serious” issue, which most likely led to more Biden voters.
PHOTO COURTESY FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM Chart displaying the polling numbers of Biden and Hillary Clinton from 2016 and 2020 respectively.
The Blue Shift: Because some key swing states chose to count mail-in ballots after election day ballots, Republicans appeared to be well-positioned to win the presidency on election night. However, since Democrats generally chose to vote by mail while Republicans generally didn’t, those leads in swing states evaporated as the days went on. The exact opposite effect happened in Kansas and Ohio, where they counted mail-in ballots first, then reported election day votes. As some misinformation memes describe states “finding votes,” the reality is states were simply counting the votes left to report. While this was a historic election, there is no proof of widespread illegal voting. According to the FBI director Christopher Wray, voter fraud has virtually no effect on election results. Americans should take pride in such an advanced electoral system being safe and secure.
